Season four of Game of Thrones started up last Sunday and I would have to say its off to a fairly good start.

This episode seemed to mostly serve as a reintroduction to the characters and various situations unfolding around Westeros. This is not really a bad thing though, and in fact, in a show like Game of Thrones that has so many characters and parallel story lines, it is almost necessary after such a long break.

There were also some new faces in this episode as we were introduced to characters from Dorn, in particular Prince Oberyn, who clearly has an axe to grind with the Lannisters and could potentially be a real game changer. 

The other big part of this episode was setup for where things are heading this season, and I feel like it’s going to be good, which for Game of Thrones probably means a lot of people are going to die. Some of the character dynamics have been shifted in important ways heading into this new season and it will be interesting to see how these relationships evolve in the coming episodes. I predict that Tyrion’s relationship with Shae and the relationship between Jaime and Cersei could take center stage this season.

As with most of the show as a whole, the acting and production quality on this episode were superb. The weakest aspect of this episode was probably the scenes involving Daenerys and her group, as nothing very important or interesting happened, except that her dragons have grown much larger.

The standout segment of the episode and by far the most awesome was near the end and involved Arya Stark and The Hound in a full-on tavern brawl. The Hound has also become one of the most fun characters on the show for me and he looks set to play a big role this season. 

Overall I thought this was a pretty solid start to season four. While there were no huge landscape shifting events like the end of last season, some important introductions were made and we are given some clues as to where this season is headed.

4/5